Sunday, July 31, 2011

Sunday Scribblings: Standing Ovation

I choose something that I had not yet finished developing but it seemed appropiate for this prompt. It may be sketchy but, hopefully, it's still worth a read...

Much Ado About Nothing

Juliet wandered onto stage, her careless air staggering behind her. A howl and a whistle floated her way from somewhere deep in the crowd. She sat down in a balcony of verbena and vine, lifting her gloved hand and settling it against her cheek. "Oh dear, oh dear," she whispered to the moon. It happened to be the only source of light this evening, blood orange and new. It seemed to whisper back to her; Juliet had an ability to draw out the attention of anyone and anything, even the moon.

She rambled on about the heir of Montague; her masked paramour; her truest love, family names, and her despair. Her voice was flat and plain and her eyes wandered.

As Fall fell into the night, a river birch draped its arms around Juliet's balcony. Its feather-veined leaves came dancing along the way. She lost her focus and brushed them aside. I sat in my set, amongst an audience full of admirers and I wondered if anyone else had noticed just how little Juliet cared. James leaned over and whispered to me, "She has such a mesmerizing way about her." As you can imagine, the last thing I needed to hear from my boyfriend was that he was mesmerized by my sister.

Her Romeo stood cloaked against the shadows. He improvised as Juliet struggled to remember her lines. No one seemed to notice.

How she had managed to bewitch not only Romeo, heir to Lord Montague, but Count Paris as well, and my Jimmy too. And every other simple sensed small town boy remained a wicked mystery to me.